Tuesday, January 31, 2012

When one-third of Bookclub* arrived at Michael Dumontier's house on Sunday to rummage through his collection, we were each given personalized copies of the book he made with Neil Farber last year called Constructive Abandonment. Each copy included a new drawing on the endpapers.

When the Royal Art Lodge disbanded a couple of years ago, Michael and Neil continued producing work together, which can be seen here. The book, published by Drawn & Quarterly, is available from Amazon, here. An interview with the artists can be read here.

Steven Jon Leiber Passed away on January 28, 2012 in San Francisco after battling cancer. He was 54. Loving husband of Leigh Markopoulos, son of Paul and Arlene Leiber, and elder brother to Mitchell and David Leiber. An art and book dealer, collector, curator, publisher, and teacher, Steven conducted his affairs with fierce intelligence and passion, integrity, creativity, and a unique sense of humor. A graduate in art history from UC Berkeley and then J.D. in Law from Golden Gate University, Steven turned to teaching in recent years at the California College of the Arts. Truly invested in the creative process he generously supported his students and was a life-long advocate of emerging artists. Starting in his early twenties he rigorously scoured Europe and the US for overlooked artistic materials, at the time considered by-products of artistic processes, such as artist´s books, ephemera, multiples, works on paper and reference materials. His archive in San Francisco and stevenleiberbasement.com became a destination for many curious about the art and culture of the 60s and 70s. His unassuming manner, dedication, and encyclopedic knowledge leave a void for many students, curators, librarians, artists, and collectors. Donations may be made to the California College of the Arts for the Steven Leiber Scholarship Fund at 5212 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94618. Private services pending.

Coach House Press founder Stan Bevington hosts a video tour of their legendary press on bpNichol lane, near Spadina and Bloor. The Press published early books by Nicol, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, Christian Bok, George Bowering, Darren O'Donnell and many others.

While in Winnipeg to see Michael Dumontier's excellent A Moon or a Button exhibition at Plug In, we visited Martha Street Studio, who have published editions by Paul Butler, Dumontier, Simon Hughes, Micah Lexier, Sylvia Matas, the Royal Art Lodge and others.

The Royal Art Lodge was an art collective active from 1996 to 2008, founded by Dumontier, Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, Drue Langlois, Jonathan Pylypchuk, and Adrian Williams. Hollie Dzama and Myles Langlois have also been members. The Books I've Read was made in their final year, when the group consisted of Farber, Dumontier and Dzama. Published in an edition of 50 (each somewhat unique), the prints are 11.5 by 70 inches and are printed on Stonehenge paper.

Surprisingly (given the level of interest in the group and the individual artists), there were three copies left for sale, now two.

Released in 2008, the Andy Warhol: The Record Covers 1949-1987, Catalogue Raisonne is nearly comprehensive, but is missing at least one title. Roland and the Flying Albatross Band (later Rat Fab) formed in 1977 and released a single in 1981. Three years later, one of the members of the band visited The Factory with his grandfather, a gallerist at the time who sold some of Warhol’s work. Warhol gave the band an image to use as a logo, and it appeared on promotional copies of a 1984 7-inch single. The disc is incredibly rare now and copies on Ebay tend to sell for about $650 US.

Whitechapel Gallery presents an evening of sonic poetry on Saturday February 18th at 7:30 pm. The event is presented in conjunction with their Writers in Residence program, which currently features Information as Material.

The evening will include performances by Rob Lavers and Simon Morris, Nick Thurston, and a headline set by Dutch avant-garde composer Jaap Blonk. Artist and poet Christian Bök will present a specially prepared VJ set.

Dedicated to Artists’ books, multiples, recordings, postcards, magazines and ephemera, this site will feature reviews of recent titles, features on artists and publishers, random listings of older works, the occasional longer essay or interview, straight-forward pictorials,links to recent news, etc. etc., in an attempt to create an aggregate of information on editioned artworks.

About Me

Dave Dyment is an artist, writer and curator based in Toronto, Canada. He is the co-editor of "One for Me and One to Share: Artists Multiples and Editions" (YYZ Books, 2012). His own work can be viewed at www.dave-dyment.com. He is represented by MKG127.